1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a glove or mitt principally for use as a catching glove by goalkeepers in games such as ice hockey. For convenience, the term "glove" will be used herein, as it is common parlance, even though such gloves may only have one pocket for the player's four fingers.
The glove of this invention allows a sports implement such as a hockey stick, or the handle of other sports implements, such as a tennis racquet, or of a tool, to be held without the player using his thumb, and accordingly it may also be useful for players of various games, and for workers, needing to hold such handles when a thumb is missing or disabled.
2. Prior Art
In the game of ice hockey, goalkeeper's hands require considerable protection since it is necessary for these to catch or deflect hard pucks which travel very fast. For the catching hand, which may be the right or left hand, gloves have been used which are basically similar to those used in baseball, having a padded finger pocket or pockets and a padded thumb pocket connected by webbing which spans the gap between these pockets, and which is used to catch a puck. However, unlike with baseball gloves, hockey goalkeeper's catching gloves also have to allow the goalkeeper to hold and manipulate a hockey stick, and in the known construction the gloves often have too much padding and are too stiff to allow good stick handling, especially if the goalkeeper does not have strong hands.
There have been a number of past attempts to improve on the ability of a hockey goalkeeper's catching glove properly to grasp his hockey stick. These efforts all have one or more critical drawbacks, such as compromising the glove or goalkeeper's catching ability, adding too much weight, being too complicated with too many moving parts increasing the likelihood of breakdown, or failing to provide a quick and sure grasp and release of the stick.
Specific prior art designs are described in the following U.S. patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,418 to Marcotte, issued Nov. 6, 1990; and PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,008 to Shane, issued Jul. 25, 1995.
Marcotte describes a glove having thumb and finger pockets of generally conventional type, but having, on the outer or back side of the finger pocket, an additional part for gripping the stick. This is a so-called "gripping pocket", which is a flexible pocket into which the fingers can be inserted. An opening is provided connecting the usual finger pocket to the gripping pocket, so that when the goalkeeper wishes to grip the stick he can move his fingers from the finger pocket to the gripping pocket and then use the fingers to hold the stick between the inside of the gripping pocket and an outer side portion of the collapsed finger pocket which is held against the stick by the thumb. The drawback of this is that the goalkeeper may need to move his fingers quickly from the gripping pocket to the finger pocket in order to make a save, and this may be awkward with this construction.
In Shane, the stick is held in the normal way, between the finger pocket and the thumb pocket, but means are provided to improve the grip on the stick. The means shown by Shane are believed to add undesirable weight and restrict the catching ability.
In both these prior patents, the thumb is needed to apply holding forces to one side of the hockey stick, and accordingly these constructions do not offer any solution to a player of ice hockey, or of any other game, where the player has a missing or disabled thumb.